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"I’m still the queen of self-help books, while my life is barely held together by dry shampoo and good intentions. Only, I’m in my twenties instead of my late teens.”
“Oh man, I know the feeling. Sometimes, I feel like I’m making the same mistakes over and over again, instead of learning from them.” She toasts me with her cup of chai, then takes another sip. “My way of dealing with it is to have lots of friends.”
“I was…amstill amazed at how many people you manage to keep in touch with. As for me? I’m better at having a few friends with whom I have deeper relationships. Not that you don’t,” I hasten to add.
She laughs. “I need to meet people. I thrive on the interaction.”
“It’s what makes you a good editor.”
“Maybe.” She tilts her head. “It’s easier to find perspective on other people’s lives than my own.” She stares at me meaningfully. “This is my way of asking if you want to talk about it. I’m a good listener, as you know.”
“You mean, the part where the daycare I’ve worked at for over two years is about to shut down—and I might lose my job?” I hunch my shoulders, a knot tightening in my chest. “And that I’ve had to report not one, but two child safeguarding cases, where the kids were taken from their families?That was brutal.I know I did the right thing, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Their lives were changed in the most traumatic way imaginable.” I shake my head, voice low. “God, listen to me. I’m complaining. The one thing I swore I’d never do.”
“You’re allowed. Working with children is not something I could do for a living. I’d be too emotionally involved with them to take care of them properly. All credit to you for doing it.” She purses her lips. “Also, it’s your prerogative what you decide is right for you, and whether you want to talk about it or not.”
I know what she’s alluding to. AndI dowant to talk about it. “You mean, why did I agree to this so-called ‘arranged marriage’ with Knox, only to not go through with it?”
She waves her hand in the air. “I’ve seen shorter engagements. Yours lasted almost a month, so there’s that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I snort.
She sets her cup on the table, then reaches over and places her hand over mine. “I’m sure you have your reasons for doing this.”
I give her a grateful smile. My friends are always in my corner. Lord knows what I’d have done without them. “You’re sweet and thank you for that. But I’m aware of how it looks from the outside.”
“It doesn’t matter how it looks to the world. You’re the one going through it. As long as it makes sense to you?—”
“It was Tor who suggested it.”
“Toren? Your brother?” She frowns.
They’ve never met, because I’ve been on my own since I met Zoey. She and the girls have become my quasi family, in that sense.
“He’s on an ambitious growth path for the Whittington Group of companies. He and Arthur Davenport, the patriarch of the Davenport Group got together and decided they wanted to bury past differences by having a Whittington and a Davenport marry. In return, the Davenports would use their business influence to support the Whittingtons, et cetera, et cetera. Get my drift?”
Her forehead scrunches up. “An arranged marriage seems to be all the fad with these moneyed families.” Then she pauses. “Present company excluded, of course.”
“Of course.” I toss my head. “You don’t have to restrain yourself on my behalf. I might still have Whittington on my passport, but I left my family and all the riches they stand for to pursue my own life when I turned eighteen, as you’re aware.”
Her scowl deepens. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you don’t particularly care for the Whittington name, why did you agree to this arranged marriage?”
“W-e-l-l.” I squirm around in my seat, then take another sip of the fortifying chai tea. “When Tor suggested that I marry a Davenport, of course, I thought he meant Tyler.”
“Tyler Davenport?”
I nod, then proceed to tell her about my almost one-night stand with him, and Serene’s arrival that night, and how he then asked me to leave.
“Shut up.” She stares at me with awhat-the-fuck, expression.
I resist the urge to giggle, because unfortunately, this is my life we’re talking about. I’ve lived it, and it wasn’t fun at all. “Told ya, it’s complicated. Especially since I didn’t really sleep with him.”
“What do you mean?” she nearly shrieks.
“I mean, I did everything but sleep with him, actually.”